saving face
by woodbox
Summary: sometimes, you just have to do it. Naminé/Yuffie.


**SAVING FACE**

Adults who knew Naminé outside of her art knew her as the sweet child, the sister of those three rough boys and the failure of a girl. Twin to the failure, angel to her parents. Talented, honest, forgiving, spiritual––a good girl. Her blond hair and pale clothes were sort of angelic, they thought, and she didn't go after boys, or men, like her sister.

A gem, that one. On the other hand, there were her siblings, her rowdy brothers with their bad friends, though Sora was mostly okay, despite sharing DNA with Roxas and hanging out with that Strange Boy all the time. And Kairi, with all her boyfriends, her free love and flowers philosophy, soaking up the world with romantic guitar and lazing about the homes of strange boys. Cloud was mostly alright, but he'd had his wild days and now he had that _boy_.

Yes, Naminé was the good child.

For that reason, and possibly also the reason for that, she told her parents she had run out of paint and was off to Blick to get some more, she'd be back soon, and they didn't question her. A simple, loving, "Be careful," and she was out the door with a quiet, graceful smile.

In actuality, she was going to her best friend's house.

_one;_

Yuffie was excitable and prone to cursing. She had aspired to do competitive gymnastics until three years prior, when something happened with her shoulders that she didn't remember the technicalities for, and she had to stop. Now, she coached kids gymnastics and was in her first year of college. Photography, she believed, was where her future was hiding.

Naminé had never seen much merit in photography, but Yuffie took pretty pictures and was apparently a great teacher, so Naminé kept those thoughts in her head.

"Wow, Nam, you're looking very–white today," Yuffie remarked, grinning so her cheeks tucked up over her eyes and moving aside so Naminé could come into the house, climb up the short steps to the living room, and collapse across one of the mushy couches.

"I hate my life," she groaned, rolling over as she dragged out the vowels of her proclamation. Her hair was getting too long to bother with, the bangs often tickling her cheeks, ends all straggly, and Yuffie settled against the arm of the sofa to play with it.

"No you don't," she said, rolling her eyes. Naminé scooted back against Yuffie's legs, reached back to take the material of Yuffie's scarf between her fingers, felt one of the hands in her hair still before resuming the twirling motion, tugging slightly.

Naminé thought, if this was all there was to life, I'd be okay.

-----

Naminé would feel guilty if she came back with no paint, and she really _was_ running out, so she left Yuffie's after an hour or so and drove to the edges of the city, where Blick was.

She grabbed a few tubes of primary colors and looked at the other colors, the rich ones that she always ended up mixing, but they were just so pretty anyways. After inspecting the stock of paintbrushes, sketchbooks, charcoal pencils, mat-board, and browsing through the books, she trudged to the register, frowning at the five tubes of acrylic and the three brushes, knowing it would cost her a week's worth of wages.

The cashier had been eyeing her lazily since she got into the store, which was also why she was frowning. The girl had no shame, did she? With her boy-cut and her ripped up jeans, she was hardly professional, especially with that challenging look she was sending towards Naminé.

"Find everything you needed?" she asked, but not before running her tongue along her teeth and making a few sucking noises, to Naminé's apparent disgust. People like her, they just thought they were so cool.

But Naminé was only herself, and this girl didn't know her, so she smiled sweetly, rolled her painting supplies onto the counter, and said, "Yeah, thanks."

She didn't notice anything the worker did beyond that, though the girl made faces at her while she was looking for her wallet, and copied her smile right back at her when she left, and as soon as her back was turned, the girl gave her the finger and a bright grin.

_two;_

Roxas was leaning in the doorway, skateboard in hand and the other one in his hair. Naminé looked up from her bed, tucked her pencil back into it's case. Kairi swung her legs over the edge of their bunk, slid one of her headphones onto her cheek so she could listen to whatever he was about to say to Naminé.

"Lets go for a drive," he said quietly, and Kairi sighed through her nose, this was always the way it went. Roxas never wanted to talk to _her_, only to Naminé.

And God knows why, too, because it wasn't like Naminé knew anything about dating boys. Kairi groaned and rolled over, pushed her headphones back on, closed her eyes as the door shut.

----

Roxas was a year younger than his sisters, and even though he had a twin, there were some things that you just don't talk to your brother about.

Things like your boyfriend.

"You going to talk?" Naminé asked, slapping his hand away from the volume dial.

"If mom and dad knew what you were really like," he said as he pulled his legs onto the dashboard.

"Yeah, well, you're not going to tell them, are you?" she bit out, turned left into the library parking lot, where she drove to the furthest spot and parked.

"Axel says I should move in with him," Roxas said, biting his thumb.

"You're only seventeen."

"Yeah."

They both sat in silence at that, watching the leaves flutter in the breeze.

"How's the team?" she asked, grappling for something to talk about that wasn't her.

Roxas snorted. "As if they still let me play. Come on, Nam, you know how people are." He picked at his vest, then shifted in his seat, crossed his ankles, slumped, looked out the window, and then, "How's Yuffie?"

To which Naminé sighed. "Life is so hard."

_three;_

Paine was a girl who lived with her friends, who worked, who painted, who wrote. Who rolled over in the pile of red tulip leaves and stretched, her t-shirt riding up her belly. She held one of the leaves in front of her nose, focusing on it and on that one suspiciously crustacean cloud alternately. She sort of wanted a cigarette, but given that she was currently at the bottom of a pile of leaves, now wasn't really the best time.

With a groan, she grabbed the shoelaces of her boots and tugged herself into a sitting position. "Hello, yard," she said, affecting a stoic face, though for her it was a smile of sorts.

Inside, Gippal was whining to Yuna about something Baralai had done. Yuna smiled as she passed, friendly but unsure.

Such was life, so she lit up on the stairs and let herself slide into the smoky world, eyes fluttering half shut, so the world was polaroid through her eyelashes, the autumn afternoon cutting squares of orange light along her legs.

She saw a face in the smoke, Gippal's face, and then his little brother, and that blonde girl she'd seen at work, the little bitch. She smiled then, alone and sprawled on the staircase.

Life was good, she thought.

---

Naminé did not share that sentiment. She was trying to have a conversation with Yuffie, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, not really looking at anything. Roxas was shouting at Dad, who was shouting over him. Mom was crying in the kitchen, something about Sora being too caught up in the sky to find a girl and Cloud was _gay_ and Roxas was _gay_ and she was going to lose Kairi, oh, why couldn't they all just be like Naminé?

She was afraid for a minute, looking at her little brother's tense shoulders, tense jaw, that he would shout something that only he knew, Naminé's only secret, but he only looked a lot older, ugly with hate and something like sadness.

Kairi slid up beside her, wrapping an arm around her sister's waist and whispering, "No," into her ear. But they both knew better.

Five minutes later, Roxas was crying silently, Naminé holding his hand, her head on his knee. Mom was crying, but Kairi was holding _her_ hand.

But Dad was still yelling, and now Sora was yelling back at him, saying that if Cloud could leave, Roxas could leave, what the fuck was he talking about, what the _fuck!_

----

Naminé dreamt that night of wearing red, of cutting her hair, of kissing her best friend and attending her little brother's wedding. She woke up to Kairi climbing out of bed and grabbing the car keys, opening their brothers' door with a small squeak. She heard the whispering and the soft crash that meant Sora was awake.

When she couldn't hear the car anymore, she slipped into the room across from hers, climbed in next to Roxas in his bed.

"We should run away," she said, not joking.

Roxas had been awake, hadn't slept at all, even though he was so tired, hadn't been able to stop listening to his father, disowning him, his mother sobbing, hadn't been able to stop feeling Naminé's hand, scared, tightly wrapped around his.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go."


End file.
